A new study has found that middle-aged women who are sexually active are likely to carry on having sex for decades, suggesting that many of them do not lose interest in sex as they get older.

In fact, most middle-aged women do not stop having sex as they age even if they are
diagnosed with sexual dysfunction, especially if sex is important to them, research has found.

A team of researchers based at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center recruited 602 women between the ages of 40 and 65 and asked them to report if they were sexually active, and how important they felt sex was in their lives, the Independent reported.

Lead author Dr Holly Thomas said that the results dispelled popular public perception that as women age, sex becomes unimportant, and that women stop having sex completely as they get older.

She said that from their study, it looks like most women continue to have sex during midlife.